“This is mayhem,” I thought to myself as our bus inched through Hanoi traffic.
My first impression of Vietnam? People can get real creative with scooter transportation. I had a window seat in the van and I couldn’t help it… I was straight-up gawking at what people were fitting on their motorbikes — giant loads of produce, boxes packed up over driver’s heads, full-size peach blossom trees for Tet celebrations, and in a few cases, a family of four.
We had just landed in our first country in Asia, and the sky was tinged yellow-gray. Small fires burned on the side of the road along flooded rice paddies near the airport. Tall, precariously thin buildings lined the roadside as we got closer to the Old Quarter in the city. There was a smokey smell to the air and people on scooters were everywhere — sliding along the van in our lane, driving up onto the sidewalks, some wearing helmets, some not, and a handful driving against traffic in the wrong lane. A few drivers kindly waved and smiled at me through the van window. (Gawking acknowledged. Nice, Dree. You’re a real sophisticated world traveler.) There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to when or how the traffic flowed.
As we made the 45-minute drive to our apartment, I started to feel a bit overwhelmed.
My feelings weren’t exactly assuaged by our first walk through the neighborhood. After dropping off our luggage, we went to find the workspace and grab some food. Crossing the street was an act of faith — you just had to start walking and the scooters would flood around you like you are a stone in a stream. Cafes filled the sidewalk to the curb, tiny stools and tables with people talking, laughing, slurping noodles. Motorbike repair shops spilled out of storefronts to the street, paint fumes and greasy parts and pneumatic drills in use, mixing with the sound of honking from the road. Knots of electrical wire cascaded from pole to pole along the building facades. We dodged several small fires on the curb, stepping out into the street where I was pretty sure I was going to be smoked by – you guessed it – A scooter.
Before I get too far with this description of my first day in the city and you, dear Reader, start to visualize Vietnam as a fiery, scooter-infested hellscape, I want to be clear that my experience in Vietnam was incredible and lovely and somewhat transformative (although I think “transformative” is kind of a douchey word. But it’s probably accurate). I just wasn’t hadn’t done nearly enough to prepare myself, and was thus surprised. In retrospect, what I think I was feeling was culture shock.
cul·ture shock
/ˈkəlCHər ˌSHäk/
noun
The feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.
So what do you do when you’re feeling paralyzed with anxiety just thinking about crossing the street in a new city?
You lean into it.
Or at least that’s how I decided to handle it.
You cross the street repeatedly. You sit on the tiny stools and awkwardly load noodles into your face with chopsticks. You ask why people burn papers on the curb, and discover they are honoring their ancestors. You start to enjoy the novelty of a wet bathroom with no real shower stall. You learn. You get uncomfortable. You make mistakes. And eventually, you start to feel mildly embarrassed that you were ever distressed in the first place.
I say all this now in hindsight. In that moment, I wasn’t even sure how to start… so I grabbed a Hanoi bingo sheet from the workspace — a silly game we play in each city where we eat local foods, visit a few must-see locations, and generally get to know the place we’re in by checking boxes on a bingo sheet. I haven’t played in any of the cities we visited previously, but it seemed somehow necessary to start tackling a tangible list of foods and experiences.
A few girlfriends took on the challenge with me, and we decided to try an easy one: egg coffee — A delicious Vietnamese drink that uses a whisked egg substitute for condensed milk (invented due to a shortage of fresh milk during the French War). The coffee shop we chose was hipster-esque, with tons of people posted up working on laptops… This is a space I knew and understood and I felt myself starting to relax.
We kept going and walked around the lake and crossed more streets. We trekked through the Old Quarter to try a dessert called chè and coconut coffee. We huddled into the back of a tiny cafe together, where we ordered bùn riêu (crab and pork noodles) sitting on six-inch stools and started piling unfamiliar table spices into our soups.
And that was it for me… Those noodles played the first notes of a love song that I would hear all month long in Hanoi. It was something I could hold on to. When my friends and family back home would call, most of the time I would respond, “I’m on a noodle hunt.” Because I likely would be. Give me a tiny stool, a Hanoi beer, and a steaming bowl of noodles on a table made to fit a 4-year-old… and I am the happiest.
Give me a tiny stool, a Hanoi beer, and a steaming bowl of noodles on a table made to fit a 4-year-old… and I am the happiest.
We tried a few other things that day on the Hanoi bingo, but this was the real turning point for me. My anxiety eased considerably after that. And I found that once you start leaning in, you just keep going. You start buying fruits you don’t recognize from the produce stand, just to taste them. You commute on the back of a stranger’s motorbike. You work on the few words you know and try them with street vendors. You eat the chicken hearts from the meat case. You start seeing the beauty you missed when you were too busy worrying that you might never adapt to the chaos.
